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Monday, June 5, 2017

A Day in the Life #48 (In Which Elizabeth Returns from the Dead)

Guys I have missed this (and you all!) so freaking much! I've been too exhausted to post, but I've at least been thinking of the blog so I know I'm not ready to put it down forever which is good :) I know it's not Sunday, aka the day I traditionally post my Day in the Life posts...but I also haven't posted in literally 6 months so who even cares about a schedule at this point? Unsurprisingly, a lot of things have happened:

1. I taught high school..and I actually liked it. After all that fuss I made! There's way less preps - I only taught 4 different courses (a total of 6 classes though) instead of the 10 different courses I taught at the middle school. The kids are challenging in a totally different way. It's challenging in the sense you've got to make sure your lesson is engaging enough (but not overly stressful) to keep kids in a room, but you spend a lot less time dealing with classroom management than you do with middle schoolers. It's not necessarily easier, exactly, just different.

2. I took a class to my first ever assessment which was SUPER STRESSFUL. For those of you who don't know (or call it adjudication like we do back home) that's when you have to travel with your kids and play in front of judges and then that score is what your school is known for. Trust me, these scores matter a lot. Teachers in the entire state have access to those scores and judge you as a teacher accordingly. And unfortunately we did really, really poorly. In my defense, we only had 20 kids in the band (most bands are at least double if not triple that size)....and four of them were unable to go to assessment. THAT'S ALMOST A QUARTER OF THE BAND. And that included 2 of my 3 trumpet players which meant that 75% of our pieces no longer had a melody.

Needless to say it was a disaster. On the upside, last year they scored the lowest score too so I literally couldn't do worse. (And we scored the second highest score on sight reading which was a great improvement, so that's something)

3. I have now taught middle school band and orchestra, high school band and orchestra, steel drums, computer music, African drumming, and American rock. If there's one thing I've learned in the past year, it's that once I stop the initial panic (wtf even is that instrument how am I supposed to teach it?!?) I am capable of doing anything that's thrown at me.

4. I was offered a job at the high school I taught at.

5. I found out two weeks ago I no longer have that job. It turns out there's this thing called "priority transfers". Basically what happens is if a school has had to cut a teacher's position or hours, the county is required to find a spot for that teacher and they get first dibs. And that's what happened to what was originally my job. What's really shitty though, is that I was never told this. I literally had no clue that could happen. So instead of continuing to take interviews in other counties just in case, I stopped applying for things....seeing as I'd been "hired". So now it's so late in the game I can't interview at the other counties since they've completed those interviews. And I'm out of a job. So instead of having a salary and benefits starting in August...I have literally nothing.

I...may have been watching a lot of Parks & Rec to console myself. What? It's totally normal to watch Parks & Rec twice. In a row. In the span of a month.

On the upside, I can get my name on long-term substitute positions in other counties, build my contacts, and hopefully I'll get long term substitute jobs in the next year and something will work out the year after that. Either way I'll be certain to get my applications in all the counties and take all the county interviews this time. The last five years have taught me that I'm resourceful and adaptive and I will always find a way to make ends meet. So I'd rather take those skills and wait another year with no salary instead of jump at the first school that makes me an offer. (I interviewed at a school and if they do offer me the job I'm going to turn it down since I don't think it would be a good match between the two of us). Did I mention the contract you have to sign? Yeah, you have to commit to a school for a minimum of three years. You break that contract...you can't teach in the state of Maryland for a decade. So yeah, I want to make sure I'm in a place I feel at least a little certain I'm not going to hate because that is a loooooong time with no guarantee of being able to transfer out afterwards anyway.

6. I'm going to Mexico City with my grandmother and cousin at some point this summer!!!! Going to Mexico City has been a dream of mine since I was in high school and traveling with my family is THE BEST and I'm SUPER CRAZY EXCITED ABOUT THIS. I'm also going to be in Wisconsin for a couple weeks which is gorgeous so I at least have an awesome summer lined up!

In summation: I don't know what I'm doing next year job-wise, but it's all going to be fine and I have a plan (which is more than I can say for most of my past life). And in the meantime I'm going to have a freaking awesome summer and I have an adorable cat who is cuddling with me so basically everything is the best right now.

Now: I have done my best to at least check in a couple times a month and read some post...but considering I've been stock piling posts for the link round up for 6 months this is a decidedly meager selection. Hopefully I'll be back on my link collecting game next post!